


Yesterday

by SimplyEssa



Series: Anew [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe — Canon Divergence, Angst, Dancing, Dramatics, Heavy Angst, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Pidge (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lies, M/M, More Hurt Than Comfort, Nightmares, Protective Lance (Voltron), Protective Shiro (Voltron), Sketchy Galra, Some Fluff, Violence, Whump, fluff with an angsty ending, kidnappings, lying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplyEssa/pseuds/SimplyEssa
Summary: As they approached the black cruisers— three of them, if he counted properly— and millions of smaller ships, he knew they were screwed. There was an ion cannon on each ship and they were all charged and ready to fire, at...Shiro.“Shiro, look out!”His heart leapt to his throat and he thrust his controls forwards, ready to shove Shiro out of the way, but someone beat him to it.Keith beat him to it, like he would be any better in his much, much smaller Lion.





	Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> any typos are on me and my shitty phone. sorry for the odd like breaks— i was using google docs and t doesnt hve ao3’s horizontal line
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT 19/06/03 : THIS IS THE 69TH POST

“C’mon,” Lance whines, plastered dramatically over their dinner table as he wiggles his ass in the air, “Just one dance! Please?”

He refuses, stubbornly shaking his head with his typical scowl.

He sighs loudly and dramatically, ignoring Shiro’s lecturous protests as he begins to get up on the table, planting his feet away from the food and standing upright. He heard Hunk chortle behind him and that’s all the incentive he needs; asides from the subtle, upwards pulling of Keith’s lips, of course.

”Lance,” he says, trying to make his voice hard, but there’s a hint of amusement in his voice, and this: this is the reason Lance pulls his stupid antics. “Lance, stop. I’m—“ he hides his smile behind his hand when Lance starts dancing as well as he can, “—not going to dance w-with you.”

And if Keith has said no twice, he pulls back, because that means he will not, in fact, dance. Sometimes, when he’s begging for something from Keith, Keith will originally say no, but after enough pleading and stupidity, he’ll give and do whatever Lance had wanted. This time, though, it seems like he won’t; in fact, he may just get angry if he keeps pushing.

So he sighs, again, even louder than before, and hightails it off the table and back into his seat.

He looks around, smiling when he sees Hunk laughing behind his hand, Allura openly giggling, and Shiro withdrawing a smile. It stings, a little, that Pidge is too engrossed in her latest project to notice his antics, but he made Keith almost smile, as well as the rest of them, and he considers that a win.

They go back to dinner in relative silence, but when he looks up, he can see Keith grinning at him.

He thinks he’ll rest easy that night.

—=—

A loud, sharp knock— almost tentative, actually— startles him from his near slumber, forcing his eyes open in the dim lighting of his room.

“Lance,” a quiet, raspy voice calls. He knows who it is, deep down, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. “Lance, are you awake?”

He groans, loudly, pressing his face further into the pillow. The person stops knocking and he sighs blissfully, burrowing further into his blankets. Whoever it is, he hopes they take the hint and fuck off.

Another knock. A lot quieter, this time.

“I— I’m sorry if I— I woke you, b-but I… I keep having this really weird dream— no, nightmare And, uh, I would be going to Shiro for this, but, uh, he’s been really stressed lately, and I want him to get as much sleep as he can. Asides from— from Shiro, you’re… probably the only one who— I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here, actually. I’m—“

Keith, he realizes slowly, is interrupted by… Coran.

“Lad, what are you doing up? It’s nearly four dobash until we’re supposed to get up for the day— Number four? Are you okay?”

Lance gets up slowly, peeling off his eye mask. He had left his headphones on the nightstand, rather than wearing them that night because he didn’t want them to get wet and break from his shower hair. He’s glad he didn’t wear them.

“I— I don’t know,” Keith whispers.

He frowns, slowly sliding out of his bunk. He regrets having been such an ass and ignoring the knock, but maybe he can make up for it now, by letting them in, and—

“If you’re not feeling safe—“

Let them in—

“I— It’s not that. I, just…”

He reaches the door, and pauses. Would Keith really want to see him? Sure, he sought Lance out at fuck knows o’clock, but when he had started rambling, he changed his mind, and Coran was handling this, now, wasn’t he?

“Oh, Number Four,” Coran says softly, and there’s a rustle of clothing before a loud, somewhat startling sob breaks through.

Lance’s heart absolutely shatters, and he can’t even see Keith.

He doesn’t care if Keith wants to see him or not. He’s going to comfort him, right?

“Nightmares are horrible, I’m afraid.”

He doesn’t.

“How d-did you—“

“I just do, my boy. Why don’t we head down to the kitchen to make some of… what was it, again? Alien hot chocolate?”

A sniffle.

“And once we get you settled, would you like to talk about it?”

There’s no answer, but Lance knows what it was when he hears footsteps.

“Alright, my boy. We’ll stop by the common room and grab you a blanket, and we’ll figure this out.”

When the footsteps finally fade, he presses his forehead against the cool, metal door. He’s a horrible person.

A horrible friend.

—=—

At breakfast, the next morning, he’s the last one there.

Everyone else is already seated at their usual spot, chatting amongst themselves as Coran brings out their usual plates of food goo. Allura is behind him, carrying a tray of drinks that tasted— from what he remembers— vaguely like lemonade. They all look as happy as ever, but stressed. Keith, especially, and… he’s not surprised.

Dark suitcases sit under his eyes like hey belong there, and his hair is mussed up— likely from the tossing and turning. He’s still in pyjamas— Altean ones, and they look soft. Coran probably found them for him last night, after they had left his doorway. He looks tired— which, frankly, he probably is. Coran looks a little out of it, albeit still happy, which proves to show they were probably up for quite a bit.

“Hey, guys,” he says, half yawning as he approaches his usual seat, next to Keith.

He gets a chorus of cheery greetings from everyone save for Keith and Pidge. Pidge offers a wave without looking up from her cup of Olkarion’s version of coffee, and Keith glares down at his lap.

He thinks he knows why he’s receiving this look, even if it’s not aimed at him.

“Hey, mullet,” he mutters quietly, nudging him in the side gently, “you sleep okay? I thought I heard you last night.”

A lie. He did hear him, but chose to ignore him instead of helping him.

Keith regards him skeptically, like he doesn’t quite believe him, before he sighs and looks down at his plate of food goo. “Slept fine.”

The words send a pang of disappointment to his stomach, but he doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t know what answer he wanted.

He does know, though, that he wishes he had helped him last night, instead of leaving him for Coran to deal with.

“Guess it was the weird vents then, huh?” he teases, but it lacks his usual gusto. He swallows hard and frowns before grabbing his spoon, suddenly excited to eat the bland food goo. “Calling my name at ass o’clock. God, I should get Coran to check those spooky things out. They’ve been making noises since the Castle tried to kill us.”

 _Shut up,_ his brain whispers.  _Stop digging this hole deeper for yourself._

Keith doesn’t answer, and everyone digs in.

Lance’s heart hurts, a little bit. He doesn’t try to get Keith to dance, this time.

—=—

The mission, originally, was simple.

It was a meeting of diplomacy, really, and by the time the Galra had shown up to destroy the planet, Lance could’ve cried in relief.

It wasn’t expected, exactly, but the meeting had gone on for so damn long now that he had seen Shiro start to yawn, and Keith’s head start to droop. It was too boring and too long; not a good combination for six teenagers and basically a six year old adult who got hardly enough sleep as it was.

When news reached that they were sitting dormant at the edge of the atmosphere, suspicion settled deep inside of his chest, but they got to their Lions, anyways. A trap or not, they needed to be ready to save these boring as fuck people with their monotone voices.

As they approached the black cruisers— three of them, if he counted properly— and millions of smaller ships, he knew they were screwed. There was an ion cannon on each ship and they were all charged and ready to fire, at...

_Shiro._

“Shiro, look out!”

His heart leapt to his throat and he thrust his controls forwards, ready to shove Shiro out of the way, but someone beat him to it.

 _Keith_ beat him to it, like he would be any better in his much, much smaller Lion.

There was a scream over the comms line as they all fired, hitting Red’s head dead on. Lance flew in to try and save Red from being destroyed, and Keith from dying, but the fighter jets were attacking, veering them off course from their teammate.

He was certain the others were talking, but Keith was still screaming, and the sound made his ears ring. Keith should never have had to make that noise, ever.

Then the line went dead, the cannons stopped, and the dust cleared.

It seemed like everything stopped, for a minute, even the fighter jets.

Red was lying still where she had been shot, smoke forming in her muzzle and trickling out through the small space where it had fallen open. Streaks of soot were splattered across the entire Lion, and one of the eyes had been cracked open; shattered.

There was a tiny red speck floating right outside of Red, and it took him only a couple of seconds to realize that it was Keith, having been ejected by his Lion sometime during the blast. It must have been when the muzzle had opened.

“Team!” Shiro calls through the comms as Lance narrowly dodges a new fleet of fighter jets. “Pidge, Hunk, keep the fighters off my tail! I see Keith! Lance, bring Red back to the Castle!”

“Roger,” he mutters, veering left to avoid a barrage of lasers.

He hightails it out of that crowd of jets before spinning around and spraying them with an ice blast. Hunk comes in and rams into them, crushing them to bits as Lance turns back towards where he had last seen Red.

Except…

Red isn’t there.

“Uh, Shiro?” Lance asks, frowning, as he spins his Lion and flies around to try and find any sign of either Red or Keith. “I— where did they go? I can’t find Red.”

“I can’t find Keith, either— Pidge, watch out!”

Pidge shrieks and narrowly avoids the ion cannons lasers. They scrape against the side of her Lion and she groans through the comms, sparking worry through Lance.

“Guys, I need help over here!” Hunk calls, fear lacing his voice, and something is horribly wrong.

“Pull back,” Shiro says, suddenly, without prompt, and crushes some of the jets flanking Hunk with Black’s jaws. “We can’t finish this today; not without Voltron.”

“But— No! What about Keith?!” Lance cries, still flying around to try and find them. He knows, deep down, where Keith really is, but… No. No, he can’t be. They must have floated a little further away.

“Lance, now! Their ion cannons are charging again and we can’t lose another Paladin!” Allura’s voice breaks through the comms. She sounds stressed, which isn’t surprising, given the circumstances. “Pull back, all of you!”

He scowls, spinning around one more time to make sure Keith really isn’t there, before giving in. He hates it, leaving Keith there, but… They’re right, aren’t they?

“Fine,” he growls, turning back towards the Castle.

He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like it anymore that, suddenly, the Galra have stopped firing as soon as Black docks in the Castle. Lance watches anxiously as they pop out of existence, as if they were never there at all.

—=—

“Paladins,” Allura says, softly; resigned, as she scrolls through the star map. Lance’s foot taps anxiously without Keith’s annoying, calming presence beside him. “I’m afraid we cannot find Keith’s armour signal.”

Lance’s heart stops.

“So— so… what does that mean?” Hunk asks, twiddling with the headband he had untied to fidget. Lance looks around, swallowing hard, and notices Shiro’s abnormally watery stare.

“It means… it means that we have no idea where the Galra have taken Keith.”

**Author's Note:**

> starts happy, ends sad. very sorry it was all over the place!  
> now!  
> dont fear; there will be two more parts to this fic. i wont be telling you anything about it, asides from that it will be in the future >:)
> 
> i hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> EDIT; i also decided to take away the klance aspect. theyre going to be close friends instead , and ill try to make that more clear in the next fic


End file.
